


I Was Alive (until i wasnt)

by Isobelle



Category: The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Angst, Birthing, Humiliation, Not Happy, about janine, and her baby, decided to post, not happy ending, written for school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 07:31:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11573319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isobelle/pseuds/Isobelle
Summary: Janine thought she did nothing wrong.Janine is wrong.





	I Was Alive (until i wasnt)

**Author's Note:**

> Janine wasn't a main character or anything, but i was asked to write a short story about one of the Handmaid's for school, and it turned out i liked it.
> 
> (If you need reminding, Janine is the one Offred and the others crowded around and humiliated for being raped, and later becomes pregant and delivers a baby.)

 

_Her fault. Her fault. Her fault._

 

Janine heaves. Choking sobs erupting from her tired lungs. Her face is disgusting, blonde hair caught in scraps on her wet cheeks. Her nose ran freely, snot hanging across her lips and chin, dripping onto the classroom floor.

 

A voice, pleased and smug, _Who led them on?_

 

_She did. She did. She did._

 

Their chanting comes in waves. Crashing onto her and drowning her over and over, forcing her down into the deep, filling her lungs until she gasps for something that’s not there. She can’t breathe she can’t breathe _she can’t_ _breathe_.

 

The voice again, quick and terrible and sharp as a whip. Janine cries out. _Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen?_

 

The water, crashing into her and sweeping her away, pounding her against the rock bottom. Her hands are caught behind her back; she can’t reach the surface.

 

_Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson._

 

She can feel the other women’s disgust, the coldness of their stares as she rocks back and forth. They hate her, these women, and their hate curls around her like poisonous mist. It stings her eyes and nose, inflames her cheeks a ruddy red. Janine keens, her throat raw as her voice cracks and shatters, breaks into a thousand pieces as it hits the floor.

 

_Crybaby. Crybaby. Crybaby._

 

They call, looking down onto her as God must have looked down upon Lucifer as he watched him fall. Down their noses, to the weeping, hovelling mess that she is. They swell with self-righteousness, shunning her for the crime she had believed wasn’t her fault.

 

_It was. It was. It was_

 

Janine thinks, her fat tongue unable to form the words as she wails.

 

“It was. It was. It was!” Janine screams as the baby comes into the world.

 

There are hands on her, patting her and crowding her in red. All she can see is red. There is salt and copper in her mouth, and she wants the baby. She wills for her arms to move, her lungs to produce sound but she can’t. She is deflated, a popped balloon that lies forgotten and broken.

 

She can’t hear the child, can’t hear _her_ child.

 

Janine weeps as the red women surround her.

 

_The Wives are here,_ she hears a whisper and then noise. Too much noise as the blue women crowd into the room. They carry plates of cakes and cups of coffee and wine glasses. They coo and make noises at her child, congratulating the bitch who couldn’t bring one screaming into the world herself.

 

“Angela,”

 

Janine looks away, clenches her eyes shut. Her heart is dying, rotting and crumpling to nothing but ash in her chest cavity. It flakes over her bones, covering her flesh with soot and clotting her blood. Janine weeps, opening her eyes to tell them she is dying. They don’t hear her, they don’t see.

 

“Angela, _Angela_ ,” the women twitter and chirp, like sick birds whose wings have been clipped. “What a sweet name!”

 

Their teeth are rotten, their own hearts black and villainous as they take her child like evil witches. The red women cloud her view and someone is sobbing helplessly, burnt-out miserable tears and Janine realises it’s herself. She cries harder as the blue women leave the room, spiriting away her child. Not Angela, _never_ Angela.

 

Someone puts cool glass to her lips, forces her to swallow the sweet juice. It fizzles inside her, sucking up the ashes of her heart to make a thick clotting liquid. Janine glances wildly at her arms but no, they aren’t grey with death. Her veins are not black and bulging. She is still alive.

 

But she is dead.


End file.
